headinclouds

I have now found the relevant page online. The boxes for property are on the following page in the shares part of the declaration (plus value meubliers).  There is only one figure to put in, the gross capital gain, with no boxes to calculate allowances only a dialogue box where you can provide your own circumstances which (hopefully) is taken into account to calculate the net gain to pay tax on.  I am about to arrange a rendez-vous to discuss this with the tax office. Thanks very much for your help everyone

Hi Parsnips, this is a pdf to print off and I was trying to complete with my online revenue declaration.  I can get to boxes for shares, etc but not for property.  I have until Tuesday to send it in online, but maybe I should take in the paper form and hope the impot is feeling lenient for being late. Thanks for your help

Desperately seeking help! Can anyone point me to the section in the declaration form (online) where I put in capital gains info for sale of second property in the UK.  I spent 30 minutes on the phone yesterday with a person from our local impot who could not tell me where to declare our capital gains, then promptly rang off in exasperation!Am I right in thinking there are allowances in the French rules that may reduce/exonerate the liability?  The sale of the property completed last July and we owned it for 13 yrs. I know I also need to declare in the UK and comfortable about getting it right there, but it has been a nightmare here so far. Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Many thanks

Ah, fantastic, thanks Jo!  Mr plumber didn't turn up so I've sorted the leaks, sorted the regulator and serviced the boiler myself.  All working great now.  The regulator did need a good clean out, and there was some c**p in the pipe so it was worth taking everything apart - plus I learned a few things too. Cheers

Thanks Crabtree and the others who offered their help.  The problem could be any of the above but  I will be leaving it to a plumber since we need our boiler servicing about now, hopefully he/she will sort it quickly. Cheers

Hi, We have a stopcock just before a large brass 'thingy' that I assume regulates water pressure into the rest of the house.  I needed to turn off the supply to fix a leak just after the meter outside, when I turned the water back on the pressure was low - so low it won't hold open the mixers for the showers (if you see what I mean).  Does anyone know if these regulators can be adjusted, or if a layperson like me could sort out the problem before we have to call in a plumber. Many thanks

That's a very good idea Norman.  We did not received an avis for the TdH last year (though we had received the Tf) but didn't think anything of it because we had been informed our liability for TdH was 10 euros per month which we paid by prelevement.  One week before Christmas we discovered the tresor took 1000 euros from our account in one lump!!  No warnings, no explanations, bang! It turned out they had lost our tax return and levied the full TdH when we were entitled to quite a substantial discount, and sent the bill to our old address in England despite sending the Tf correctly to us here in France.  After much wrangling we eventually received a reimbursement in May this year and finally we see our address is correct and duly received our bills this month.  We have now done what you are suggesting by saving monthly amounts in our own accounts ready for the bills at the end of the year.  If the bills don't arrive we go and ask at the tresor.

I hear what you say, Norman, and a big thanks for the info you have provided.  It is not that I don't find the spreadsheet credible, when so many on this link and previous ones agree with your take on the calculations, it's just that there is so much conflicting info out there!  Last year (our first tax return over here) we paid someone (a french ex tax office worker) to do the return for us.  We ended up not paying any tax for 2010, which was great, but according to the spreadsheet we should have - albeit a small contribution.  I have asked via eamil for the lady to explain how she calculated our liability, but we have not received a reply and she is not doing this work anymore. Anyway, I am about to fill in our return for 2011 - I will look at the links you have provided, and with the info contributed on this forum I think we shouldn't go too far wrong.  We have put money by according to your spreadsheet calculation.

Here's the link to where I saw this theoretical 'threshold'.  http://www.french-property.com/guides/france/finance-taxation/taxation/calculation-tax-liability/rates/ "We show below the income levels for 2012, for income earned in 2011 that trigger liability to French income tax for different types of household. If your income is below these figures, then you will not be liable to French income tax. The figures are shown by marital status and age, and by household size ('parts') and type of income." There is a higher level for over 65s shown in the last box. 

You're in a pretty good position, Redwood, since you are currently renovating and not undoing possible poor previous heating options.  But what to opt for, for long term economy and efficiency is like hunting for the holy grail.  Without a doubt, though, go over the top on insulating and draghtproofing your home because the lower you can make the heat losses the less hard (and costly) it will be for whatever heating system you adopt.  A good place to look for impartial technical info is the Energy Saving Trust website, http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/england/Info/Site-map it's a bit of a maze but there are some exellent guides for renovation projects along with running cost comparisons (have a look in the proffessional sections as well).  Perhaps look into finding someone independant to carry out some heat loss calculations for you.  Once you know the total heat losses you will know how many kW of any fuel will keep you warm in the coldest days.  Look on the net for the calorific values for different fuels, then find the cost per kW for each to give you some running costs.  http://www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk/portal/page?_pageid=75,20041&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL  At the moment we have two 9kW wood burners and a cuisiniere with back boiler to heat 450 cubic meters. We used two cord of wood this year which I obtained when cheap, i.e. by felling, splitting and transporting timber myself offered in the classifieds (60E per cord all in), and we have some woodland to coppice (an accident when we bought, not clever forward thinking!). Our electricity bill this year will be around 450E. I have found huge savings in costs and amount of wood used as I have progressed with insulating the house - I can't stress enough the value of doing this. And it will help keep the house cool in hot weather.  On the downside, handling wood for burning is b****y hard work! My wish list would be for a combination of a wood gasification boiler+rads, linked with solar water and a large storage tank, with electric back-up. The wood boiler takes batches that burn really hot to heat water in a large storage tank, providing hot water for rads and domestic use when required.  The solar panels provide domestic hot water in spring summer and autumn, and help to pre-heat for the radiators in winter.  There wouldn't be much change from about 15k for all this though, and that's with me doing some of the work.  I can't see oil prices reducing in the near future, and although electricity is still relatively cheap power cuts do still occur. I think you will still be able to find good deals on wood for some time to come, that's why I've gone down that root and not heat pumps for instance, and installing an underfloor system is more than we could afford. Don't be fooled about winter temperatures in your area, we have friends in Haute Vienne who experience very cold periods in winter.

Very useful spreadsheet Norman, thanks for that.  However, I'm a little confused by the result it has given me in our situation.  I believe the tax threshold in France this year below which we would not pay tax is around 21k (65yrs+) but the spreadsheet shows a liability to pay some tax although our income is slightly below this figure. I have a horrible feeling I'm missing something, but can anyone clarify the level of the thresholds set for income tax purposes.

Thanks for that Parsnips, your advice has been put into action straight away.

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help with a little problem. Although we have been paying by dd an amount for TdH, which was set by our local tax office, we didn't receive a bill at the end of last year and were horrified to discover a week before christmas the Tresor had taken over 1000 euros in one lump for 2011 from our current account. Our Christmas spirit was a bit subdued to say the least!  We had filled in our tax return for 2011 (with the tax contoleur at the tax office) and were told our financial circumstances would exempt us from the tax for 2011, so we went in to see what had gone wrong.  They had lost our return!  Never mind, we filled in another one immediately and claimed back the tax we had paid, and received a degrevement in mid January. Great.  The problem is we still have not received the money, although we have called several times we are repeatedly told the money will arrive in 15 days. We feel we are being fobbed off. Can anyone advise where we can go for assistance please. Many thanks